Incurable
by Seneti
Summary: When Lorne and his new team get stuck on a planet that seems to be populated by Wraith, all hope seems lost. Lorne survives while his team falls, but doubts about his saviour soon come to his mind. Rating just to be safe. CURRENTLY ON HIATUS
1. The Deeper Darkness

**Incurable**

A.N.: Hi folks! So here I am with my first Stargate fanfic ever (the first of the three Stargate projects I am currently working on). This one is about one of my favourite Atlantis characters, Lorne, and not to forget: The Wraith. The idea for this fanfic came to me when I listened to Marilyn Manson's "Coma (White)".

Anyway, I don't want to bother you all with long speeches. Have fun reading it and please leave a review if you liked it (or if you found anything that has to be corrected).

DISCLAIMER: Lorne and all other characters of SGA do not belong to me, yet I own Hyde, Martins, Dekura and Hatari and of course the idea for this story. If their are any similarities to already existing characters or storylines, then it was not my intention to steal anything.

* * *

I – The Deeper Darkness

The wormhole shut close behind them, leaving his team on the planet with only a few lights for companion. The sky was clouded completely, though he had already forgotten what it had looked like. He had only had a few seconds between his arrival and the one of his team to take a look around, when the wormhole still spared some light.

He had seen buildings - or rather yet – ruins of what must once have been a powerful city. He had also been able to take a short look at the M.A.L.P. they had sent through the gate. To put it the nice way: It was a mess. Sighing, Lorne activated the flashlight on his weapon just in case and gestured to his team. "Alright, we don't know what we have here and we barely have light supply except for those darn lights. Dekura, you are coming with me, Martins and Hyde, you are going south. Five minutes then you all come back here and we go back to Atlantis for report. Encounter anything strange and you're coming back immediately. Got that?"

"Yes, sir." His three comrades replied before starting with their search for any life signs on this dusty, dark planet. Taking a deep breath, the young Japanese stepped next to her major. "So, what do you think what killed all the people here?"

"I don't know." Lorne replied flatly, as he felt the temperatures fall quickly. Whatever it had been, he did not want to be there when it came back. He did not want to say it aloud, but basically this planet and its darkness scared the hell out of him.

- - -

In the opposite direction, Hyde and Martins kept going through the destroyed alleys, talking to each other to chase away the silence. For Martins, same as for Dekura, it was the first off-world mission and Hyde knew what it was like to be stuck with that feeling of helplessness and fear.

"There really is nothing to worry about, Martins." The young Scot tried to calm his friend down. He glanced at his watch briefly. "Hey, look! It's just another minute. Then, we are heading back to Atlantis, get ourselves some coffee and-" He stopped abruptly, holding his right hand up to keep Martins from going on. Carefully, he stepped closer to the figure lying in the shadows in front of him. He didn't know whether it was caution or fear that made his hand tremble as he turned the body around. "Oh my good Lord!"

Martins saw the skin of the freshly fed on wraith corpse glimmer in a weird shade of white and copper in the small light, before Hyde sank to the ground, shot. A sound he had never heard filled the air. But he had heard stories about it. He had heard enough to know that he had to run. Grabbing for his radio, he rushed back to the gate. "Major Lorne!" He shouted out of breath. "Enemy contact south of the gate. Heading back to-" From the blackness in front of him, the face of a Wraith appeared in the dim light.

- - -

"Go! Go and dial the gate!" Lorne shouted at Dekura, as the radio contact broke. "Dial the gate and head back to Atlantis! Tell them to raise the shield right after you! I will go get the others." She ran through the debris, trying not to stumble out of panic. This was her first off-world mission, darn it! It was not supposed to be like that. Far away in the south, Lorne could hear the sound of Wraith darts. They covered the same distance they had taken before in barely a minute. Once at the gate, panic kept vaporizing what was left of Dekura's sanity, when she dialled the gate with her petite hands and accidentally hit the wrong button. Frustration had merely arisen from her subconscious before the first blast hit the spot beside her. Panicking, she slammed her fists on the damn machine. "Major!"

Lorne turned back around right on his heels. How stupid could he have been to split his team, forcing him to be stuck between two amateurs who needed his help? Frowning, he decided to head back to the gate. The screams died off before he reached it. Taking a last deep breath, he stepped next to the ring.

The face of his team member was nothing more than a distorted mix of horror and death in the darkness. By what he knew about the Wraith, the one standing next to her corpse would probably be quite hard to kill now. To his left and right, he could hear hissed breath and pawing feet, not to mention the Wraith dart sounds that seemed to come from everywhere now. So this was it. Here he was on some godforsaken planet with his people dead and Lord knew how many Wraith waiting to feed on him.

He aimed quickly as the Wraith that had just killed Dekura turned to go for him. He wasted a whole magazine on bringing that thing down to the ground and half another one to finally kill it. From the shadows, the pawing came nearer. Keeping the gun ready in his right hand, he went to dial for Atlantis before all was gone for good, but it was hard to focus when death was so close. Even though it wasn't the first time he faced it. He had just activated the third symbol when a rough hand grazed his left arm and another one reached for his right one. Screaming in rage, he turned to the right and fired.

The water boiled quietly in the cooking pot, while she went for the meat. It had been a long time since she had last stood there cooking for more than one person, yet there she was, trying to create something that could bring him back onto his own two feet.

- - - 

She let the knife sink down to the table for the moment and left the kitchen. He still lay as she had left him and somehow, the sight made her smile.

She glanced back into the kitchen and decided that it was not yet time to go all red alert on the cooking. Carefully, she strolled over to him and roamed his body again.

He had put up quite a fight against all those Wraith and it had clearly cost him. Erasing the smile, she gently traced the long, bloody scar that stretched along his right forearm.

He shot up from his sleep almost too quickly for her to evade. But only almost. She was on her feet and away from his bedside within a second. The look on his face told her that he was – above many other things – confused and in pain. Careful not to hurt him, she stepped closer again, knelt down and pushed him back into the pillows.

"It's alright. It's alright. You are safe here. I'm not going to hurt you."

Lorne glanced at the girl next to him, back at the ceiling, his own body and back at her. A little smile curved her thin lips and her green eyes sparkled with what seemed to be concern and – good Lord help him – some type of amusement.

"You are quite badly wounded." Her voice reached his ear in a choir of thunder, though he could see due to the moves of her lips that she was whispering. "I am preparing something to eat for… the two of us." She added hesitating after a glance at the spot to his left. "It will help you regain some of your strength. Just lay still. Everything will be alright." She patted his hand in a tender caress, then turned to leave again. She had almost reached the kitchen door again when she heard him whisper.

"Martins…"

"They drew almost all of his life power." She explained, not at all surprised that he glared at the spot she had looked at in shock. His comrade. "I can't do anything for him. He will not make it. I'm sorry."

- - - 

Her words kept echoing through his head, even as Lorne tried to push them aside. Badly wounded… Everything alright… Drew… Will not make it… How the hell was everything going to be alright? "Martins…" He whispered once again, but mentally scolded himself for making such a lot of noise. To his surprise, the young soldier opened his eyes slowly and tilted his head to look to where the familiar voice came from. "Major…"

The old, thin voice caused Lorne to flinch. No way in hell could this be the young man he had taken into his team only a week ago.

"Found… a fed on Wraith…" Martins continued between coughs. Clearly, drawing all those years from him had left permanent damage. He looked, sounded and felt pretty much like an 80-year-old. "Hyde's dead…"

"Don't!" Lorne interrupted, suddenly feeling like he had to do something. Anything. "Stop talking, Martins. Save your strength till we get back to Atlantis."

A sleepy smile flashed on the soldier's face before his eyes closed. "Was… honour… being… your team."

The girl came back into the room again, this time holding a tray with two dishes on it. When she noticed the look on his face, her smile faded. "I am sorry." She mentioned glumly. Having placed the tray next to him, she went to cover the face of his dead comrade with a blanket. "They had taken way too much from him. None of us could have done anything. Neither you, nor I. The only thing you can do now is live to keep at least the memory of him alive."

He knew what she was aiming at and somehow, even here in this Wraith contaminated place he was willing to keep at least himself alive. And above all, THIS place didn't even look that bad.

It was the first time he was actually able to take a closer look at his surroundings without being in severe pain. He was lying on the ground with dozens of cosy blankets under and two of them above him. The room was all painted in a warm copper-like colour. Numerous candles of different colours as well as two tapestries decorated the walls. It looked – in the widest sense – cosy.

"That's my living area." She explained as she noticed his searching look. "I usually spend my time reading or eating in here. Normally, I don't have any visitors, so… well… sorry you have to sleep on the floor." Smiling, she took the spoons she had brought, raised his head and helped him drink the soup she had prepared. The hot fluid felt like liquid gold on his tongue and he decided to leave it to speechless relaxing for a moment. Satisfied, she went for her own dish.

"So… who are you?" He questioned, making the pain between his ribs get worse again. "And what do you among all those Wraith?"

"I am not AMONG them." She corrected and he could have sworn he had seen both a pouting child and a heart-stabbing bitterness in those green eyes for a moment. "My name is Hatari. I've been stuck on this stupid planet for five years now." Noticing the demand for sound sleep in his eyes, she packed everything together and stood up again. "I found you when you were as good as dead. Like it or not. you are now stuck here with me. I'm going to treat you. And now you need rest. Close your eyes and sleep. If you need anything, just call for me. I'm right in the next room." Smiling just a little, she went for the kitchen. "See you tomorrow."


	2. Beneath

A.N.: Here we go - the next chapter. Please note that I am currently working on eight different stories, so it MIGHT take a while until I update. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter. Hope you like that one, too.

Disclaimer: I don't own Lorne, Atlantis or anything from the series. But I own Hatari.

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II – Beneath

Sleep had overcome him quickly and it had held him with its soft claws long enough for him to lose track of what had happened. But when he woke up again – inside this copper room with all the candles – the memory came back.

He doubted it for a moment, when he found the spot next to him empty. Unfortunately, her voice taught him better. "I burned his body. Can't bury him up there, but I thought… well maybe… I don't know." She stopped and he could see a strange kind of sadness in her eyes. She stood there between the door's frames, arms crossed in front of her chest. For the first time, he managed to get a clear picture of her.

She was about his height, slim, but not thin, with a bright skin that reminded him of ivory. Her green eyes almost looked brown in the light and her short black hair framed her face perfectly. She was dressed in civilian's clothes, except for the knives that were almost perfectly hidden between her gloves and her dark shirt. "Hatari, right?"

The black-haired giggled shortly as if he had just made a joke. "Right. I almost feared you'd forgotten about it with the concussion and everything."

"Concussion?" He doubted he had anything like that. The room was not spinning, his head did not hurt and he didn't feel like bringing out last night's soup the wrong way either. "How do you wanna know? You're a doctor?" He watched her shake her head before she reached for some bandages and vials she had placed on a nearby table. With the silent grace of a cat, she sat down next to him and drew back the blankets. Lorne glared at his own bandaged body. "Wow! What did I get myself into out there?"

"Basically, you went to the wrong planet." She replied shortly. "You got hit quite badly, lost a lot of blood. I did my best to help you but I'm not that good at anatomy lessons. I'm rather into psychology and genetics, but apparently, I know enough to save a soldier's life." She grabbed the dog tags next to him and flipped them between her fingers. "Those mean you are part of an army, don't they? And you were wearing uniform. Where do you come from…" She reached for the bloody jacket she had gotten him out of, switching between looking at the uniform and the dog tags. "… Major Lorne?"

"Classified." He answered and caught a sheepish smile in response. "Well, actually I'm from an entirely different galaxy, but some of us are currently stationed here in Pegasus. I can't tell you, sorry."

"I see… Well I wouldn't trust me either, if I were you." She worked her way through the mess of bandages around his chest. To any other person, it might have looked as if she barely knew what she was doing there, but Lorne could see a familiar type of awareness in her eyes. Her gloved hands worked with precision and care, finally revealing two scarred, but apart from that, perfectly healed wounds. "It's a specific… and very rare drug." She mentioned, knowing that he was wondering how the hell his wounds could have healed that quickly. "But I couldn't give you enough to make you heal at once. Didn't want you to end up as an addict. Underneath your skin, the wounds are still there. You should rest. For at least a week." She added on second thought.

"It's quite a deceiving medicine then, isn't it?"

"Well, but it helps getting the bandages off." She explained amused. "I know what kind of a patient **I **am and **I **certainly wouldn't want those restraining things on me all the time. I hate them."

"Me, too." He smiled back quietly, then took a gulp of the medicine she offered. It tasted crappy, but as it often was with medicine, he was sure that this was just a typical side effect accompanying the success of it. "Thanks for saving my life by the way."

"Oh, don't mention it." She packed everything back together again, leaving only a few pills next to his clothes. "I'm glad I've got some company. You don't find such a lot of people coming to that planet and surviving it."

He held his breath for a minute, knowing that what he was about to say would probably bring up bad memories. "So…" He started trying to find the right undertone so it wouldn't sound like an offence. „ How many years has it been since you had your last visitor?"

"More than five years." She replied flatly from the other end of the room.

"But you said you've only been here for five years." She smirked briefly at the expression of shock on his face, then turned around and sat down again. "It's a really, really, REALLY long story, but to cut it short: I went through the gate, I was ambushed by a dozen of Wraith and I looked for shelter. I found the labyrinth down here and locked myself up within those walls, so the Wraith would not get to me. I only leave this place to get supplies of food, water, or anything else I need."

"Labyrinth?" Lorne raised an eyebrow sceptically. Just what the hell had he gotten himself into here anyway? Apparently, this was about to get better with every minute. "What about radio contact?"

"With whom?" His saviour tilted her head slightly. "You know what: I'll just get ourselves some pillows to make this more comfortable and something to eat and then I'll come back and we can discuss the whole thing. I have a feeling like this may take a while."

She left him lying there and turned to head for her own room. Her hands trembled as she reached for the pillows on her bead. Such a long time! It had been such a long time since she had spoken more than five sentences to someone and this guy was probably going to turn it into a several hours lasting discussion. Even thinking of it made her smile from joy and shiver from excitement. But he was there and he would stay for at least a week. Another smile sneaked upon her face.

Having taken the pillows, she headed for the kitchen to catch some food and water. She also still had the power bar she had found inside his bag and she was sure he would definitely enjoy it now.

When she entered the living area, he was already trying to sit up on his own again. She wondered whether to smack him or to laugh at him for even trying it. On one hand, it just looked plain funny, on the other one, she knew it was murder. His wounds still were too deep and the pain blockers she had given him could not ease all of it. "Next time you try something as stupid as that, I'm going to replace the pain blockers with some sleeping pills."

"Sorry." Leaning back against the pillows she had stuffed between his back and the wall, he took a look at the food she had brought this time. It reminded him a lot of the food he had gotten during a trip to Teyla's people only a few weeks ago. When his gaze met the candy bar, his lips curved almost automatically. Seeing his reaction, her smile widened. "Yes, I thought you would like it. Go ahead. You need to eat to regain your strength. The meat is quite hot, but apart from that, it shouldn't do anything to your stomach. I will tell you about the planet and why you will probably never get out of here again."

The smile faded from his face immediately, but hers even grew. "Please…" She pointed at the food. "It will turn cold soon enough."

Frowning, Lorne reached for the food. "I will get out of here. My people will come and get me. We don't leave anyone behind."

Her response was a short grunt that left no doubt about what she thought of his words. But see as she had been living alone for the last five years, he couldn't blame her at all. "First of all, they can't get here through the gate." She started. "This planet is used by the Wraith as a feeding and training ground for their children. How much do you know about the Wraith culture?"

"Uhh… As good as nothing?" He couldn't put it in another way. Until now, for example, he hadn't even known that there were specific planets for younger Wraith.

"Only one of about 20 to 30 Wraith is a female. They are very rare and therefore take higher positions in the Wraith population. Only two of them ever leave those nursing planets. Those two have extra-ordinarily strong telepathic powers: The Queen and the Keeper. The Queen is the only female that can bring forth children. During her lifetime, she chooses several male Wraith to be her closest servants and later then the fathers to her children. The Iratus bug lays eggs, the Wraith don't, but they also don't give birth to living Wraith. Wraith babies are like larvae. They need a certain time to grow. They are fed like any human baby, the only difference is they are given human meat instead of animal meat. That's why they don't even develop an aversion against killing people. They are raised that way."

"And the other females do raise them on those planets?" Lorne asked disgusted by the picture of a little Wraith devouring human meat that kept popping up inside his head. "Like in a population of honey bees?"

"I don't know what honey bees are." She answered on a smile. "But basically, you are right. The other females look after them until they are beginning to develop the typical Wraith hunger. Then, they are taken to the hive ships. But most times, they kill their first prey on planets such as this one. The Wraith take some of their unfaithful worshippers here, because they don't need them anymore anyway, and the rest I guess is known to you."

"Oh well, so that's why it's so cosy here." Lorne replied sarcastically. "What about number two? You said "first of all". What else should I know?"

"Secondly – and this is the real problem – your people can't even pick up your signal here, Major. We are forty metres below the surface, above us metal, stone and massive concrete. Not to mention a magnetic shield."

"And there is no way out?" Silence fell between them. He could see she wanted to avoid that question by the way she glared down at her food. Nevertheless, he was not going to end down there in – whatever it was. "Hatari!" Her eyes focused on him again, but the bleakness had not yet faded. "Don't get me wrong: It's not like I want to get rid of you." In the back of his mind, Lorne cursed himself for stumbling across that possibly meaning of his words that late. "But I want to go home. There are people who worry. People who look for me. I've got to get back to Atlantis."

"Atlantis?" Immediately, she snapped out of her trance. "Atlantis? The city of the Ancestors? Well, now I DO believe you that they will get you back somehow. Or at least, that you want to. The Wraith hate it." When he kept staring, a smirk stretched across her face. "I certainly understand WHY you want to go back. But… it's difficult, if not even impossible."

"What do you mean by "difficult"? There is a way, but?"

"I locked all the entrances and exits." She finished on a sigh. "When I first came here, the Wraith tried to follow me everywhere. They hunted me. So I locked all the doors with passwords and codes. Three locks per door. They have not yet figured out how to get past all of them, but I still don't want to press my luck. We are on the sixth level. The Wraith have come until level four. You don't want to fight yourself through four levels contaminated by Wraith, do you?"

"Oh yes, I do."

She watched him continue eating as if nothing had happened at all. Obviously, he either hadn't listened, or he was just plain crazy. She could imagine Atlantis to be a place worth fighting and dying for, but with him gone, she'd be alone. Once again.

"I can take you with me… perhaps." He mentioned as if he had read her thoughts. "I mean… I already gave away classified information to you, you saved my life and you've got the codes and passwords, so – hey – I'm not going to get out of here without you anyway."

"Your people would not accept me." The sadness had returned to her voice as she set her plate down. "But if you really want to leave, I'll try to find a way for you. Give me a week. You will need it to rest. I will need it to find a way to get a signal through to your people."

He wanted to argue, but she was already up and out of the room. Sighing, Lorne sank back into pillows.

He could have sworn he had seen tears in her eyes.


	3. Revelation

A.N.: First of all, I guess I owe all of you an apology for updating so late. I must admit that it's partly my fault. Sorry. Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far. As I said, Hatari's secret (which will be the main topic for the rest of the story) will be revealed in this chapter.

Disclaimer: I don't own SGA or any of it's characters, but I own Hatari.

III – Revelation

The sound of birds singing woke her gently from her sleep. Wind rustled through the needles of the tree's branches above her, pulling sleep back into her eyes. Frowning, she forced her eyes open.

It was a mistake.

The corpse next to her was wrinkled and distorted. Its eyes stared at her with an expression of blame and horror. Shrieking, she sat up and crouched away backwards, just to find her hand stuck in another corpse. Quickly, she withdrew the hand again and looked at it. Another scream rippled from her throat.

---

Lorne was in her bedroom within a second. In the last days he had come to spend with her, he had noticed that none of her few hours of rest passed without nightmares. But she had never reacted with a high-pitched scream like that one.

She was curled up between the copper pillows – a colour of her favourite – as he knew by now. Her eyes focused on nothing in particular and the bleakness in them sent shivers down his spine. Carefully, he reached for her fists.

The punch hit him faster than he had imagined, but she had only hit his arm and so he recovered quickly. Nevertheless, she seemed to possess a strength he had not yet noticed at all.

"Easy, Hatari! Take it easy!" He tried to console her as best as he could, before approaching her again. "It's just us. You don't have to worry."

"Lorne?" Her voice was thin, almost shaky, but at least it was a word.

"Marcus." He corrected on a sigh. "How often do I have to tell you that you can just call me by my first name?" A weak smile slid across her face, before she reached for the gloves on the bedside table. He had never, except for that moment of course, seen her without them, he noticed, but right at the moment, he didn't bother. "Are you alright again?"

"Yes, yes." She got up quickly, set the mess of her hair in some proper form again and followed him out of the room. "I suspect you have found something of interest?"

Immediately, Lorne's face lit up again. "That too. Remember the radio signal you sent when you were on the surface?"

"Of course." She muttered and she also remembered that she had had a hell of a time fighting all the Wraith that had been waiting for her. Usually, her visits to the upper levels were restricted to the very quick search for food and water. But this time, she had spent a whole eight minutes up there to install that damn transmitter, so his people could see he was still alive – given they were somewhere in the orbit. Until now, she had clearly doubted it.

"That's a coded signal from the Daedalus!" He pointed at the monitor in her computer room, where a strange script played on screen.

"That doesn't look familiar to me."

"It's a special script from Earth." He chuckled at her puzzled look. "It's called stenographic. I took a course in it. They know that I understand it."

"While the Wraith don't." She finished. "Okay, so what does it say?"

He scrolled through all of it again, hesitating at certain points. Apparently, he had taken the course, but couldn't remember all of it. "They say they are in orbit, but they can't get me beamed out of here when I'm beneath the surface, because of the magnetic shield. They are waiting to pick up my radio signal again.

"Which means that you will just have to go to the surface, say "beam me up" and hope that none of the hundreds of thousands of Wraith out there are hungry." Frowning, she left the room again to pace quietly from one end of her flat to the other. It was by far the most depressing news of the past week to her.

"You don't have to come with me, although I don't want to leave you here." Lorne mentioned, as he leaned back against the door's frame. "Listen, Hatari, they will not reject you, don't you understand that?"

"No, you don't understand!" She spat back teary eyed when she turned around to him. They had been arguing about that for days now and he still didn't get it. "You don't know anything about me-"

"You saved my life, nearly giving yours, you enabled me contact to my people again and you have kept me company quite well for the last week, so what? What the hell is it that I don' know about you and that could be so important?"

She frowned, sighed and in the end decided to leave it to ending that argument without a reasonable compromise. The way they worked together now, they were not going anywhere. None of them. "You will see." She knew it was no satisfying answer and his ironic smile in response only confirmed that. Summoning all her strength, she took another breath. "But first, I want a kiss."

"Excuse me?" The confusion was easy to hear in his voice. Where there had been rage or frustration before, the simple lack of understanding now leaked through.

"You got me right, Marcus. I want a kiss. After that, I'll give you the codes and you can type your way up to the surface while I keep you from meeting any unfriendly visitors. Believe me: That's the easiest way. I will have no other choice but to show you then."

Lorne wanted to argue, but he too had come to realise that this only cut his chances of ever getting off that darn planet again. Besides, it was just a kiss, so why bother? "If I end up without getting the answer to my questions and you dead, I will hate you for eternity." He half-joked, half-explained. Grinning at the weary smile she gave him, he crossed the room, caught her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers.

For someone who was that desperate to get a kiss, she acted quite surprised and unprepared. He could feel the passion, the longing, the mere need clawing at her, but her movements taught him that she was either a total newbie – which he already considered ridiculous when looking at her body – or an extremely bad kisser. Either way, he was glad they had finally found something that could replace a never-ending argument.

She broke the kiss and swallowed for air frantically. Another little smile sneaked upon her lips. "Okay… here we go." She left the room through the door to the computer area, but returned quickly with a small console in her hands. "Here are the codes. Let's get going."

---

By the time they had worked themselves up to the last sub-level, all Lorne could feel anymore was the urgent wish to wake up and tell himself that it had been a dream and nothing of this was real. He himself was as good as unharmed, apart from the fact that his lungs burned like fire from all the running, jumping, climbing, evading. He didn't even want to know how Hatari felt now. Hatari…

He turned around to search for her, but couldn't make out anything in the darkness. It had already taken him three levels to get used to ignoring all the snarls and screams from the Wraith around them. Or those of Hatari. He considered it a wonder she could still fight as if nothing had happened.

"What are you waiting for?" She punched his shoulder lightly as she stepped out of a darker passage next to him. It nearly made him shriek, but as she had expected, he recovered quickly from the shock.

"Oh my goddess, you really-" Within a second, his face went blank again. Eyes widening in utter astonishment, Lorne reached for her right cheek. "Hatari, how…? The last time I saw you, you had a hell of a scratch on your face!" He roamed her body shortly, wincing when she noticed that her wounds seemed to be gone. "Hatari, who or what are you?"

She actually wanted to yell at him and tell him to go on typing in the damn codes, for she could already hear and feel nearly a dozen of Wraith approach them, but he was right. She owed him an answer. A weak smile covered her thin lips. "You know what…" She took his left hand carefully and let her right fist rest in it. The gloves were off, he noticed quickly. "The reason I wanted you to kiss me." Slowly, she unclenched her fist in his warm hands. "I didn't want to die never having kissed a guy. No one would ever dare doing it." Finally, her hand lay open in his. The claw like fingers felt cold against his skin, the slit on her palm was clearly visible, despite all the blood.

"Oh my god!" It was all he managed, paralysed by – what? Fear? Astonishment? He couldn't tell. His gaze was fixed on the ivory hand. It made sense. The colour of her eyes, her skin, the healing, the strength… "You are a Wraith yourself."

"Half-Wraith." She insisted. "My mother was perfectly human. She was a worshipper long ago, but when they told her to kill me, she got some sense knocked into her. She ran away and taught me to value and honour all human life above the one of a Wraith. I usually prefer to feed on Wraith instead of humans."

Slowly, understanding dawned inside him. "The Wraith corpse Martins and Hyde found…"

"Was my lunch." She gritted her teeth in a smile, showing the sharp vampire-like edges to him, before she erased it just as quickly. "They are coming." She closed her eyes to focus, then fletched her teeth again. "Go on, Marcus! Type in those damn codes!"

Next to her, Lorne kept standing still for another moment, trying to put some order into the chaos of thoughts in his head. A Wraith, no Half-Wraith. He had been living with a Half-Wraith for almost a week! Shoving shock, disgust and fear aside, he went to open the last door. Wraith or not, he had to get out of that hellhole before all was over.

The first scream reached his ear, while he entered the password. It was definitely the one of a Wraith, though he wasn't entirely sure anymore, if it couldn't have been one of Hatari either. Pushing that idea away, too, he went for the first code.

The stunner blast hit his right arm, causing him to cry out in pain. He had been hit by those things before, but he couldn't recall them to be THAT painful. Numbness spread from the spot down to his fingers, effectively keeping him from entering the second half of the code. In a quick move, Lorne evaded the second blast that would have knocked him out.

In the corridor to the left, Hatari kept sucking the life out of the Wraith that had just hit her with its stunner. It felt good to have the stiffness fade at least for a moment. There was no time to enjoy though. In the shadows not far away from Lorne, she could feel the presence of another group of younger Wraith.

Lorne. Marcus.

She ran back through the halls as quick as she could, but still careful not to trip across the corpses of all the Wraith she had fed upon. The awkward pain crept back into her body again, when another blast hit her right in the back.

She stumbled forward and crashed straight into him. Balance was lost and they fell to the ground without the slightest chance of catching themselves. Her head hit the concrete with a loud bang and sent the angels singing in her mind.

Lorne landed quite inconveniently on his right arm, secretly thanking the Wraith that had stunned him that it hadn't hit his left – and still working – arm. The console had shattered on the ground and now lay in pieces. That was the bad news. After a quick gaze at his left and right, he turned to Hatari for the codes. "Wake up, sweetheart, we still need your head."

"What…" Her voice was nothing more but slow muttering in the dark. He could tell she was dazed, probably even shocked. His hands felt wet on the back of her head and he wasn't really surprised to find them bloody. Frowning, she sat up slowly and tried to get rid of the Wraith voices in her head. Silence. All she wanted was damn, freaking silence. "5563902". She murmured slowly, just loud enough for him to hear. Immediately, she heard him rush to the panels.

Another stunner blast knocked her down just as she had managed to stumble back onto her own two feet. What was left of her pain dissolved into sheer fury. Those damn bastards. They would regret that soon enough.

"I've got the second code!" Lorne shouted from the panel. "Hatari, the last code!"

"41175784-" She stopped abruptly and launched forward as if she was hunting down her prey. Her hand gripped his jacket only moments before the stunner blast went right into the control panel. She drew him back quickly, but held his stumbling weight easily in the vertical line. "Ah, damn it, get out of the line. I'm doing this."

Unwilling to believe that he had just heard the typical hissing of a Wraith in her voice, Lorne stepped aside quickly. He couldn't remember her talking like this at any time. She was definitely pissed. And he hoped by any deity in this world that it wasn't himself who her anger was aimed at. Quietly, the doors slid open in front of him. The last passage. The last obstacle.

"You want to wait until they feed on you?" Her voice sounded perfectly cold again, as she grabbed for his jacket again and dragged him through the corridors. "I haven't brought you all the way here to have us end up like that." When they reached the surface, her senses went red alert again. Wraith. More than just a dozen. Perfectly great. Muttering a curse in her father's language, she pushed Lorne out into the open fields. "Get that damn signal up to your people!"

"Don't have to tell me twice." A smile on his face, Lorne picked up his radio and activated the transmitter, sending a signal right into orbit. The device crackled softly, then made a loud beep and turned almost silent. Almost.

"Major?"

"Nice to hear your voice, Colonel. Now beam us up. We're two. Me and the life signal closest to mine. Rush!" He turned to look at Hatari and the look on her face pierced right through his heart. Apparently, she was fed up with the good old argument.

"Lorne, are you-" Her moves were quick, but not quick enough for both of them. Leaving the other Wraith unnoticed, she jumped next to him, blocking his body with hers as the Wraith behind him fired its last ammunition at them. She had forgotten they still had some of the earthlings' weapons up on the surface from the two they had killed. Hot metal burned into her back and made her scream from pain. A Wraith scream, cruel enough to scare not only him, but her, too. Trying to ease the pain, she clung closer to him. Then, there was the blackness of nothing.

---

They arrived right on the bridge of the Daedalus. She still clung to him, now shivering from the pain that seeped through her body. It was over. Giving into the darkness, she opened her hands and slid to the ground.

Lorne had barely had a few seconds to notice what was going on. They pointed their weapons at him, or better yet: at her, even though she now lay on the ground, blood dripping from her wound and her half open mouth, eyes widened in fear, her body shivering frantically as she gulped for air. "Hatari!" He knelt down next to her and heard the others release the safety catches. "For God's sake, take down those damn weapons!" He shouted and was surprised to find himself that furious in one moment and helpless in the other. Guilt. Yes, that was the best way to describe it. It was his fault that she was lying there, as good as dead. "Hatari…" He cradled her head with one hand, while taking her right hand in the other. "Call a medical team, damn it!"

"I'm beyond human forms of healing." She replied with the weakest voice he had ever heard since he had watched Martins die.

"Then we'll try it the non-human way." He ripped his jacket open and her eyes widened immediately. Not in joy, as one would have thought, but in pure fear. "You saved my life more than once." Releasing her hand, he tore his shirt at the neckline. "Let me save yours."

"Marcus, don't! Please don't!"

"Major Lorne, get out of the line!" He heard Caldwell shout from behind, but it barely mattered now. Taking a last deep breath, he caught her right hand again and gazed at her teary eyes, before setting it onto his chest. Her claws dug into him, drawing his life power immediately. When pain became too strong, he ripped her hand off his chest again. The wounds were clearly visible on his chest. Her breath had turned down to a slightly less alerting level, but the tremors still ran through her body. "COULD SOMEBODY PLEASE CALL THE MEDS?!"


	4. Carson

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Stargate Atlantis or any of its characters. I do however own Hatari.

**A.N.: **I'm terribly sorry for updating so late. My muse was on holiday for the last half year and whatever I tried to write - I did never get beyond half a page. Luckily, my muse is back and I am already working on chapter 5 (half done). Oh, and since I have only watched Atlantis up until the episode "Common Ground" I will simply ignore what I was told is going to happen in "Sunday". Hope you like this Carson chapter Please read and review and sorry again for having you wait that long.

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**IV – Carson**

Darkness had taken her once again. Pain ruled over her body and in the back of her head, she could hear a disturbingly loud, unfamiliar noise.

She wouldn't have been surprised, if she had been dead and in hell. She would not have been surprised if her pathetic life had finally come to an end and yet there seemed to be someone who would not let her go.

It had taken her some time to realise that the noise she heard were voices. So many of them. So many different, unfamiliar voices. Most of them came and went as swift as shadows. Short, whispered syllables that responded to one voice. Affirmative answers to the commands of a single person. Gathering all her strength, she tried to concentrate on that one only.

Most of the words were not known to her, though from all that she could understand she concluded that it was medical terminology. The voice itself was soft in its basics, but it had taken a sharp edge, which told her that the situation seemed to be quite serious. He – it definitely was a male voice – was rushing. Even the amount of information alone made her feel like her damaged head was going to explode right away. There was rushing and there was concern.

Apparently, someone was trying to save her life.

-x-x-

The various lines on the monitor turned into stable sinus curves again and Doctor Carson Beckett, chief surgeon of Atlantis, allowed a sigh of relief and content to leave his dry mouth. That girl had really scared the hell out of him.

She had been more dead than alive when the Daedalus had beamed her up. Maybe it had been premonition, maybe just the desire to leave his labs for a while, that had moved him to accompany the Daedalus on their rescue mission. He had thought of a different scenario. He had expected them to present a totally wracked Lorne to him, a Major to work on for several hours in order to save his life. He had expected lots of things.

The medical team had come to him with a bloody half Wraith girl.

THAT he had not expected.

The rest of the team had backed away pretty quickly when Lorne had stumbled in right behind her. The signs on his chest were clearly visible, same as the blood on her right hand. Immediately, 90 of his team had been paralysed and the rest had gone to help the Major, who fought against any treatment like a cat that was about to get an injection.

And all this had left him – alone of course – to glare at the Wraith girl and wonder how to help her.

He could have let her die. It would have been so easy and nobody would have blamed him. But he had sworn to protect life as long as he could and – bloody hell – she was alive. And she needed medical treatment. From the pure looks of it, Lorne was not half as torn and wracked as she was. He would definitely survive.

It had taken Carson quite a long time – in the world of a doctor where every single second counted: about two minutes – to talk some of his team into assisting him. Without Lorne's help, or better yet, his yelling and his refusal to allow any treatment on himself before she had been looked after, he probably wouldn't have done it.

In the end, he had managed to grab a small team of five nurses willing to assist him in that presumably suicidal attempt of saving a Wraith's life. Never mind Lorne still insisted they called her a HALF WRAITH. Apparently, there was quite a bond between the two of them.

The surgery had been complicated, but they managed to take all eight bullets out of her body. Her heart had stopped several times, but now it seemed the worst was over. She was in stable condition again. Thank God.

Sighing again, Carson turned around, preparing to treat his second patient. Surprise was easy to hear in his voice when he found Lorne sitting fully awake and apparently out of pain on one of the beds, a woollen blanket around his shoulders. "Oh, Major, I see you've already been treated."

"Yeah. So to say." Carefully, Lorne traced his fingers across bandages around his chest. One of the meds had pumped pain blockers into him and the effect was easy to feel. He could have fallen asleep right on the spot, but his eyes still focused the girl behind Carson. "Will she be alright?"

"If I knew that, lad…" Carson answered quietly. "Right at the moment, she's doing pretty well, but she's not out of the woods yet. Without your..." He glanced shortly at the spot where she had drawn his life. "… without your help she probably wouldn't have survived."

A slight smile stretched across Lorne's face, but it faded away quickly. "She saved my life, doc. I owed her that much. At least."

-x-x-

When they arrived back in Atlantis five hours later, Dr. Weir was already waiting for them, as were Sheppard, Ronon and a bunch of security guys. Carson frowned in frustration. Apparently, Caldwell hade made sure there would be no way that girl could do anything hostile.

"I have given her double doses of pain blockers and sedatives, besides, her body is a mess." Carson snapped at the Colonel the moment they arrived in Atlantis. "You are really over-reacting." He nodded shortly towards Elizabeth, then accompanied his team as they moved the girl through the halls to the infirmary.

They arrived there only a few minutes later, the full "Welcome home" team still on his heels. The Wraith girl lay quietly in front of them.

She reminded him a lot of Ellia, Carson noticed now. She had the same silky, black hair that framed her ivory face perfectly. And same as Ellia, she appeared anything but hostile to him. If there was a word to describe it, Carson would have said she looked troubled, like she knew what was going on around her.

Careful not to step too close, Weir approached them. "Okay, Carson, tell me what we know about her and what you think about her. Security risk?"

Again, the Scotsman frowned. It was them who called the Wraith hostile, but at the same time, their own attitude wasn't that much better, either. "She's only half a Wraith." Carson started, trying to sound as objective as possible. "According to Major Lorne, she saved his life more than once back on that planet, helped him escape. She's quite badly wounded, but the injuries are healing pretty quickly. I sedated her. I gave her pain blockers. Her system's currently filled with drugs. She won't just jump up and kill somebody any time soon. In fact, I think she'll stay in semi-coma for the rest of the day. We found no weapons, explosives or transmitters or anything of that kind." Taking a deep breath, Carson finished attaching her to the machines and turned around again. "I don't think she's a danger, Elizabeth. Not to anyone but her own self."

"She's a Wraith." Ronon stated simply and his gaze said more than a thousand words.

"Well, and she attacked Lorne back on the Daedalus." Weir stated, but Carson quickly cut her off. "Not from what Major Lorne told me. He said he had offered her to take a wee bit of his life and she had refused. He said he had to force her to draw his life." Frustrated, Carson turned to Caldwell. He didn't want to save her just to have her shot by Ronon, Sheppard or any of the Atlantis personnel for that matter. "Colonel, you have been there. Did she take his life voluntarily or did she not?"

"She didn't." Caldwell admitted, but the tone of his voice made it perfectly clear he did not approve of his own statement.

"She did not take that much, anyway." Carson added quickly. "We've treated Lorne, Elizabeth. What she took from him was – in the equivalent of time – not much more than a few days or weeks, three months the most. She could have cured herself completely by killing him, but she chose not to."

"But she could also simply have searched for a way to get here." Sheppard added, though the look on his face told Elizabeth that even he considered that unlikely. After the events in Koyla's hiding place and the whole life-taking / live-giving thing, John had come to get rid of a few prejudices in his head. "I'd recommend we take her under 24/7 surveillance and wait until she's up and around to talk to us again."

Raising an eyebrow, Elizabeth looked at the girl again. "Alright then, I want guards stationed at all exits and a camera for surveillance. Let's hope she'll cooperate."

-x-x-

The security group left again and Carson was glad to be back in the comfortable silence of the infirmary with only a few nurses and his patients around. True, guards were stationed at every door and the infirmary had lost some of its privacy, but it was better than having those dumb security giants peek over his shoulder.

The silence remained for about half an hour that helped him to clear his head off all the stress of the last hours. His main patient, the half Wraith girl, lay quietly in her bed and was on the best way to perfect health. In fact, it always again amazed him how fast these creatures could heal themselves.

The silence was broken by none other but Lorne, who had probably spent the last 30 minutes in the briefing room, telling his story as fast as he could. Carson could see in his face that he was everything but pleased with the fact that he was that late.

"Hello Major." Carson greeted the man as he rushed over to where the doc said with a dozen of papers in the left hand and a cup of coffee in the right one. "How's the wound doing?"

"Perfect. Absolutely. I'm fine." Lorne answered quickly. "How is she doing? Can I talk to her?"

Carson frowned shortly before setting down his cup and leading the Major to her bed. "You can try to talk to her, if you want to, but don't expect her to answer. It may take a while until she's ready for that step again." Stepping aside, Carson watched the Major take one of the chairs and sit down next to the bed. They had saved each other's life after all. No wonder Lorne was worried about her. "Don't worry, Major." Carson tried to cheer him up. "She's half a Wraith. Her wounds are healing fast." He patted the man's shoulder shortly, then returned back to his desk. It had been a quiet month so far, except for Ronon Dex and Colonel Sheppard who seemed to be magnets for danger. Hardly anyone had come to the infirmary because of more than a few scratches or a headache.

Up to now.

Three long hours passed in which Carson slipped in and out of sleep every minute. Deciding that it was no use trying to rest as long as he had a badly wounded patient in the infirmary, Carson got up from his place and stepped next to her bed again. The monitors showed no abnormalities and-

"Bloody hell!" He jumped back immediately as her eyes flapped open. For a moment, Carson felt his heart stop beating. "Don't ever do that again, love."

She let her gaze wander from the ceiling to him. "I'm sorry." The man she saw was in his thirties, definitely human and she had just scared the hell out of him, A weak smile stretched across her face. "You must be doctor Carson Beckett, right?"

"That's right." Having overcome his first shock, Carson stepped closer again. "How do you know about me?"

"Marcus told me. Lorne." Her voice was faint, a little more than a whisper. "Is he alright? I didn't want to hurt him. Please tell me he is alright."

"He is." Slowly, Carson's lips curved into a smile. "In fact, he was here just an hour ago to see if YOU were going to be alright. You are both out of the woods, but you should rest now."

Taking the hint, she smiled weakly again. "I shall try. Please, tell him not to worry. I am half a Wraith. My wounds will be gone soon."

Carson nodded shortly in response, then turned to leave again. Suddenly, he found his left wrist in the firm grasp of a Wraith hand.

"And, doc…"

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

-x-x-

Another hour went by, but rest could not be found by Carson. He had thought he could sleep peacefully, now that he'd be sure she was not in a coma anymore, yet the peace would not come.

And after an hour of watching her suffer, Carson was sure he had to do something that was not his remit. Usually.

The first person to call was Major Lorne. Carson frowned as he heard the sleepy voice answer through the communicator. Usually, waking up patients in the middle of the night was definitely not a habit of Carson. He had barely mentioned the girl before Lorne's voice went to red alert.

"Is she alright?" It was the second sentence Carson heard and he sighed deeply before reassuring Lore that everything was alright. Medically.

"Major, has she been having nightmare before? Do you know?" A minute passed in silence, telling him that this was not what the Major had expected. Frowning, Carson tried to put a medically complicated explanation into common speech. "Major, I gave her double doses of basically any sedative we have down here, but her EEG shows brain activity that's indicating that she's dreaming. Her pulse is more than rapid and I consider it a wonder her heart's still keeping up that good, so I don't suppose she's dreaming of anything pleasant. Now that's not unusual for patients who suffered as she did, but it may also indicate that she could be willingly or unwillingly linked to another Wraith. I hate to say this, Major, but if that's the case, I'll have to-"

"She had." Lorne interrupted, frustration easy to hear in his voice. "She often had nightmares. I can't recall a single night she hadn't. I don't think she is communicating with anyone but herself in her dreams. If it were Wraith, she wouldn't have saved me in the first place. All she ever said was "God, I hate myself." The last words almost burst out of him and Carson could hear the Major sigh on the other end. "She told me not to tell anybody, even if we made it to Atlantis. She said it was enough we'd hate her anyway and she didn't need us to think that she was a spy or a psycho."

"I see." Carson's answer was short and brisk and much less caring than he had wanted it to. "I'll call Dr. Heightmeyer and tell her to have a little talk with her. We will not tell Elizabeth about it for the moment, alright?"

"Yeah. Yes, that's perfect. Wait a minute. I'm coming down to join you."

"No, Major wai-" The communicator on the other end was turned off and Carson allowed a short curse to come across his lips. This was absolutely not one of the better days in Atlantis.


	5. Kate

**V – Kate**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Stargate Atlantis or any of the characters from the series. But I own Hatari.

**A.N.: **See, I told you I will update the next chapter soon. This one contains a lot of talking though in later parts, since it's basically a "session" between Kate and Hatari, but, well, at some point in the story, you always need a longer talking part. Thanks to everyone who reviews or has this on their alert list. Love you all.

highonscifi: Hey, I'm glad somebody noticed. Yes, the name "Hatari" is from an African language (Hausa, if I remember correctly) and means "danger". My character is half a wraith - how much more dangerous could it get? Ok, I admit, there are still twists to come, so be prepared ;) Anyway, I a am honoured to have such a watchful reviewer

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Kate Heightmeyer entered the infirmary nothing more than fifteen minutes after Carson had called her. Her flowing, blonde hair showed in no way that she had just gotten out of bed and no sign of fatigue was to be seen in her eyes. Greeting her with a smile, Carson met her at his desk. He found it simply amazing how she always managed to seem so completely awake, even when being ripped out of sleep at 2 am. It was one thing he admired her for. He, too, used to work overtime, but usually, the strain those hours had on him were easily visible in the lines of his face and his ruffled hair.

"I'm sorry I called you down here at such a bloody late hour." He mentioned quickly, but Kate held up a hand in response. "It's okay, Carson. Doctors are used to it, aren't we?" A quick smile flashed on her face. "Besides, I do not work half as many nightshifts as you. Where is the poor girl?"

_Right to the point. _Carson grimaced. He hoped by all the powers of God that no one but him, Kate and Lorne caught wind of this. If they did, things would get more than just complicated. "The nightmares started right after she fell asleep after her first wakening." Carson explained while leading her over to the bed. "Major Lorne said it's fairly normal for her, but I would like your professional opinion first before I hand this to Elizabeth."

"Of course." Nodding shortly, Atlantis' leading psychologist braced herself for the encounter that she had wanted to postpone as far as possible. The memories of her conversations with Michael – after he had found out about the retro virus – were still vivid in her mind and she had to admit that people who were partly Wraith did not count as her most favourite patients. Still, it needed to be done. And if she shied away, then who would do the job?

She was surprised to find the girl already wide awake, staring at the ceiling as if trying not to think of anything. It was a rather effective way of willing things out of one's mind, if one had the strength to pull through it until the end when the body would – in the literal meaning of the word – become tired of the continuity. She didn't doubt a half-wraith had such strength of mind.

Next to her, the Major sat quietly, giving her a glance as she approached the bed. Immediately, her patient turned her head and Kate smiled briefly. She looked fairly human, although her green eyes and ivory skin gave away some of her wraith heritage, if one already had the suspicion. It was those eyes that captivated her attention. Lost eyes that stared at her with a mixture of pain, curiosity and sadness and for several moments, Kate stood two steps away from the bed, simply looking her patient over. Yes, she appeared to be perfectly human apart from the elongated finger nails and the green eyes.

"I don't bite." A weary smile curved the girl's lips and Kate grinned back before she took a chair from one of the desks and set down next to the bed. With the distance between them closed, the psychologist noticed the numerous scratches all over the girl's body. According to Carson, these had been wounds from projectile weapons and deep claw scratches only a few hours before. She really healed quickly. "Kate Heightmeyer, is it, right?" The girl asked and received a calm not in response.

"Your name is Hatari, right?" When the half-wraith nodded, turning her head so she faced the ceiling again, Kate shot the Major a quick glance. She was trying to avoid conversation. Kate could need all the help she could get. Focusing on the girl's face again, she continued. "Hatari, I don't mean to do this in order to bother you. It's just something that we have to do, unless you want to face the following questions in an interrogation in the presence of Ronon Dex and a number of other people who would shoot you on sight."

"Wouldn't be that bad." She mentioned simply and from the corner of her left eye she noticed the confused look the psychologist gave her. "An interrogation consists of when, where, what, yes and no. But you want to know why and how. Ronon Dex might shoot a hole through my chest, but he wouldn't dig holes through my mind and soul."

"You are very clever." Kate admitted loudly. She was indeed. And that alone would make it worse. Her actions were carefully measured and calculated and Kate had no doubts that this girl would perfectly know what to reveal and what to conceal without giving away any of her true features. This would be like cracking a walnut open bare handed. On the other hand – what had she expected anyway? "But sooner or later, we are going to have this talk anyways, so we can just do it now. We can simply tell Dr. Weir that you asked to advance psychological assessment and we won't have to tell her I came down here in the middle of the night to determine whether you are trying to lure us into a trap or not. I can also go back to bed, sleep mercifully until the late morning and report to Dr. Weir first thing tomorrow morning."

Hatari chuckled shortly, a muffled sound that didn't show any effort to hold back the contempt she felt for the moment. "You are very clever, too." She tried to sit up and as she felt Lorne's hands trying to restrain her in silent worry, she simply pushed them away. "It's alright, really. Sitting won't kill me." The pain that suddenly spread through her strained body taught her better, as her back fell against the prepped pillows. The sedatives and pain blockers had been wearing off long ago and the dull aches held the promise of bursting into something sharper and more unnerving any minute. "Now, go ahead. Pick my mind."

Frowning shortly, Kate leaned a bit closer. This was going to be a rather long night. "Okay, then let's roll this up from the back end. Have you ever communicated with other wraith through the telepathic link?"

She sighed shortly. "A few times. I have been avoiding to do so since I locked myself up in the base on the nest planet. They could have grabbed the codes for the locks from me, had I allowed them access. It was also a good way of training, sharpening my senses, strengthening my resistance. I guess the last time I tried to communicate was more than twelve years ago."

"Twelve?" Kate made no effort to hide the fact that she was surprised. Neither did Lorne as he gaped at her. "Twelve years…." Kate finally trailed off. "Just how old are you, Hatari? You must still have been half a child then, right?"

"I was thirteen." She stated simply. "That was two years after… Never mind."

Immediately, Kate's attention was on full alert. She glanced at the girl's left hand slightly and noticed she had curled it into a fist, clutching the sheets. It was a sign of nervousness and – by the way her knuckles turned even whiter then they already were – also a sign of self-punishment. A slip of tongue. She scolded herself. "Two years after what? Two years after what you saw in your dreams?"

Unsurprisingly, she didn't get an answer. Instead, Hatari simply shrugged her shoulders. "I am not talking to them anymore. I have quit long ago. Believe it or not." She frowned shortly, knowing that there was no way in hell they were simply going to believe her. After all, they had no reliable method of making sure she didn't, except for that woman called "Teyla Emmagan", maybe. Marcus had told her about Teyla. An Athosian with wraith DNA. Someone who had more or less successfully tapped into the minds of several wraith. She doubted that Teyla Emmagan would be a match for her, but she was without doubt a risk. "I should never have come here in the first place." Noticing with a grimace that she had actually said it out loud, she glared at Lorne again. "You should have let me die back on the planet. We would both be better off if you had."

Immediately she earned herself knuckles on the head. The ache that had – up to that point – been nothing but dull throbbing quickly turned into sharp, jolting pain and she whispered a curse in her father's language. Next to her, Lorne gave her a quick and sheepish grin. "Shouldn't have said something this stupid. Now, go tell her. You've got nothing to lose."

She thought for a moment about returning the favour with knuckles right into his face and the twitching of her fingers told her that the wraith part in her would thoroughly enjoy the reprimanding gesture. Willing the upcoming thoughts back into the darkest depths of her mind where they belonged, she took a deep breath. She would not give up that witch made her different from her father and his brutal kind. She would not give in to the thirst for blood, to the urge to simply take for herself what she needed. She would not.

"Hatari? Are you alright?" It was the soft voice of Kate Heightmeyer that drew her back into the painful reality. Her life – oh so uncomplicated until a week ago – had become a labyrinth, a deadly maze that put both her sanity and her humanity to the test. There was no clear line anymore. All she could do now was either stop and starve while being questioned until she'd go mad, or go into the directions that the voices pushed her. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she faced the psychologist again. This had to be. "I guess I am not."

A genuine smile of comfort curved Kate's lips. The first layer of ice had been broken. Self-assessment was very important in psychological processes and truth was that this girl was not alright. If she recognised that, then there was hope for her. Trying to help someone who didn't want help was about as fruitless as trying to make a fake plant grow. Honourable motive, but dumb approach. "I understand you are not ready to talk about all of it, so why don't we just continue the way we started? I ask questions. You answer them."

"Like in an interrogation?"

Kate nodded at the girl's tired smile. "Just like an interrogation, if you really prefer the hard way. Shall I read you your rights before we start?" The light chuckle that burst from the girl's mouth caused a whole mountain to fall off her shoulders. The atmosphere was finally a little lightened up. Good. "Why don't we start at the beginning? Your parents. Who were they? Your father was a wraith, right?"

Forcing the chuckle back into her throat where it had originated, Hatari nodded. She felt better now. The more impersonal the tone, the better. "My mother was a worshipper." She explained, while examining her half-claw hands. The picture in her head was as clear as day now. "She and her whole family had worshipped the wraith for generations. They were rewarded with their life and even a certain degree of respect. Usually, relationships between worshippers and wraith are forbidden. At least those that bring forth children. I don't really have the slightest idea why my mother and her master broke that law." She tried to think back to the conversations she had had with her mother. She had asked her often enough and never received a proper answer. _"It simply happened"_ was one of the answers that her mother had once given her. "I think they simply didn't care. That was… until my mother got pregnant. Half-bloods are considered a shame for the entire hive. They told her to kill me."

"And she refused."

"Of course she did." She frowned shortly. If her mother hadn't, they wouldn't have this conversation anyway. "She knew the ship, the language and nearly every address of the hive's feeding grounds. She tricked them. Her family had worshipped them for several generations. They didn't expect her to disobey when she said she agreed. I don't know what planet I was born on, but I know that during the first weeks of my life I must have seen a countless number of worlds. She moved quickly to avoid detection. I never met my father. I only know him from my mother's descriptions. And from the image stuck in my mind." Immediately, the picture popped up in her mind again. The same green eyes, the same ivory skin that she had. And yet, she doubted anybody would see the connection even if they stood right next to each other.

"And after that?" Kate questioned. She could almost see the wheels turn in her patient's mind as she went back in time to recall what had happened. Kate risked a short glance at the watch on the wall behind Lorne and immediately winced slightly. It was almost half past two and she was sure that her head would rebel from the night session in the late morning hours. Switching her gaze to Lorne, she noticed that he, too, seemed to hold the wish for the cosy warmth of bed sheets and the bliss of hours of sleep. Nevertheless, the look he gave her in response told her that there was no way he would leave before they were finished. Deciding that it was probably better not to focus on just how early in the morning it was, she turned back to her patient only to see the omniscient grin on her face. She knew just how hard it was for a human being to stay awake at such an hour and Kate was once again reminded of just how far ahead the wraith were of them. Finally, she managed to regain her composure. "Please, continue."

"She went to spend the most terrible eleven years of her life." A sad smile curved her thin lips. Yes, that was probably the most appropriate way to put it. "She had gotten used to being among the wraith. She had gotten used to being looked after. She realised she couldn't live on her own, especially not with a baby in her arms. So she chose a populated planet that was most likely not going to be culled any time soon and tried to fit in again. There simply was no other option."

"She tried to?"

"She had to ditch the "Hail the wraith"-mentality, if you know what I mean. She had to act like she was awfully frightened of them, like she hated them from her deep heart's core and most of it all, she had to make sure nobody got a closer look at me. Her usual excuse for hiding her daughter away was that I was simply awfully shy towards other people and started crying easily. She wasn't so wrong about it. I never felt comfortable around humans. And I did cry a lot." The thought brought a smile to her face. She couldn't remember those early years of her life, of course, but she head never in her childhood lost her fear of human company. It was something that intrigued her to no end and yet, she still felt uncomfortable when finally in company of others. "I guess it was my constant fear of what people would react like when they finally saw me for what I was. When I was older – old enough to understand just what kind of situation I was in – my mother finally gave me a little more freedom. Under the condition that I would keep on gloves, of course. If someone asked, I had a deeply nasty burn on my hands that really no one needed to see. End of story."

"And the people let you and your mother get away with that?" Kate raised an eyebrow. If she had been there, she wouldn't have believed them. At least she would have insisted that a burn was no reason hide away oneself. It was superficial and it said not the least about a person's character. "Did none of the villagers ever insist?"

"They did." Hatari gave a short smirk at the expression on the psychologist's face. Yes, there had been questions. Constantly, relentlessly questions. "I guess the wraith part got the better of me. I turned from a cry baby into the aggressive problem child that listened to nearly nobody. The villagers started to give way to their frustration and stopped bothering. We were about as much appreciated as the undertaker and while they tolerated our presence, they stopped trying to integrate us into their community."

"Did you have any friends?" Kate inquired carefully, although she was sure she already knew the answer. When Hatari simply shook her head, she sighed deeply. It was to be expected. A child and her mother who appeared out of nowhere, avoided the presence of others and generally acted like life was none of their business were not exactly the best basis for ground-breaking friendship. No wonder this girl preferred the loneliness of a wraith-infested planet to the crowded halls of Atlantis. She doubted this girl had any social competence at all. "Did it never bother you?"

"Which part of me?" She watched as the psychologists eyes widened in confusion and another smile crept across her face. "The human part of me wanted to hide away and cry. The wraith part in me basically didn't give a damn." And this, she noticed, was the guiding principal in her life. The stark contrast of wraithal indifference towards human compassion. The wish to be part of a society and at the same time the disgust the thought evoked in her. She had dragged herself through her life like this until the cursed day. That one, cursed day. The smile faded away from her face and she turned her head absently to look at the slit in her right hand. There was no blood on it anymore and yet it was such an easy reminder. She could have explained her ivory skin to the others, she could have explained her green eyes and the fact that her teeth and nails were sharper than those of a normal human being. She could have blamed all of these onto a freaky decision of Mother Nature. But this simple anatomic sign, this simple mark was something that didn't allow any other conclusion but the one that would have people either running away from her or grabbing whatever weapons they had to try and slaughter her. Pictures flashed up in front of her eyes again and she shut her eyes to push the flood of unwelcome reminders away. Her efforts didn't go unnoticed.

"Hatari?" Next to her, both Kate and Lorne had watched her closely as she had examined her hand, as the memories washed over her again. Almost simultaneously, they bent forward in concern. Swallowing back the dry feeling in her throat, Kate reached for the girl's right hand and gripped it slightly. _The hand that could kill_, her mind added and she pushed the thought away. Obviously, they had reached the point where she would finally have to do what she came here to do. The part that went beyond simple interrogating, narrating and presenting of facts. "Hatari, it is alright, just open your eyes and talk to us. Take a deep breath and open your eyes. You are not back there, you are in Atlantis. Major Lorne is here, I am here, everything is over. It is just a memory."

"Have you ever killed anybody, doctor Heightmeyer?" Forcing her eyes open again, she turned her head only to find the psychologist stare at her in a mixture of concern and confusion and as she tried to raise her right hand, she felt the touch of another soft hand on it. The by now oh so familiar smirk came forth again. "I did. With the very hand you are holding." The last sentence had the intended effect and she could feel the woman's finger's flex in a quick rush of fear. Slowly, she raised her hand up until it was right in front of her face. "Two or three people each year or I am dead." She hadn't even finished the close inspection of the cursed mark on her palm when she felt her hand being turned to the left.

"And what are these?" She traced the tender lines slowly. From this close, the scars were easily visible. They went all around the slit in her hand. Around and through. "This must have hurt."

"Holy mother of God, Hatari what have you done?" Lorne exclaimed as he noticed the scarred surface of her palms. He had never seen those before. He reached for her hand slowly, but instead of getting hold of them, simply received a sharp hiss from her. It was a wraithal sound. One that he had last heard on their way up to the surface of this dreadful nesting planet. He knew she only used it when completely and madly irritated, even furious. Apparently, she didn't like all the attention the imperfectly healed wounds got.

"It's none of your business! Both of yours!" She snapped, wriggling her hand free, and shot both of them an angry glance. The numb pain in her chest that she had felt and not paid any attention to throughout the whole session had suddenly worsened and now felt like a blade right through her heart. The rapid beeping of the machines assured her that her heartbeat was indeed racing and she knew it was a dangerous cocktail combined with the anger she felt. Forcing her mind out of reality and into the back of her conscious where here primal instincts battled to be released just for a spit second, she hissed out in pain. One second would be enough. She knew that. One second would be enough to endanger lives. _You have done this before, _a hissing voice from those primal depths whispered in her ear. It was all she heard. The frantic beat of her heart and the hissing voice that she dreadfully realised was her own. The voice for which life was easy. The voice for which life simply consisted of instincts, of killing or being killed. The voice that represented the part of her that inherited her father's indifference and obvious lack of remorse and other troubling human emotions. The voice that she feared more than death itself.

"Hatari!" Lorne's voice was that of concern as he reached out to shake shoulder slightly, but Kate caught his hand quickly and shook her head. "She can't hear you, Major." Bitterness was easy to make out in her words. "See the trembling of her lips? She is battling with herself. She doesn't even hear you. There is only one thing that we can do for her now." Sighing, she stood up and left, only to return not more than a minute later with Carson Beckett right on her heels. As he saw her sitting there, eyes open, silently whispering to herself, Carson shook his head in concern. "Poor girl. She really has to go through each and every single hell, doesn't she?" Preparing the needle, he bent down slowly and removed the sleeve of the hospital gown from her left arm. Giving a last quick glance at her face to make sure she would not lash out suddenly, he administered the sedative as quickly as possible and watched her eyes close in weariness. He had given her almost twice the usual dose, knowing that a single dose would not do any good with someone of wraith heritage.

Within two minutes, the sedative had fulfilled its purpose completely and the two doctors watched silently from a few feet away as Lorne set her back down into the pillows. Sighing deeply, Kate turned to Carson. "Elizabeth is so going to like this time's report…"

"You think she is communicating with other wraith?" Carson asked with the slightest twinge of fear in his voice, but Kate shook her head fiercely. A nice, throbbing headache was building up in the back of her head and she made a note to herself to double her dose of aspirin this time. "I think the Major is right: She is communicating with no one but herself. Better yet, battling with herself. This girl has some serious issues, Carson. I wouldn't go a far as saying that she paranoid or schizophrenic or anything. Just extremely emotionally instable and cursed with an incredible aggression potential."

"Like every other bloody wraith we have ever come across?" Carson asked and a little smile wanted to creep across his lips. This was not a situation calling for light-heartedness. Frowning, he glanced quickly at his watch and winced. "Good god, 4 am, already?"

Taking the hint, Kate turned to leave again. "Send the Major to bed and get some rest, Carson. I'm just going to write the damn report for Elizabeth." She took a few steps before turning around one last time. Stifling a yawn, she gave a last glance at the girl before looking at Carson again. His hair was ruffled and from the look in his eyes she could tell that he hadn't slept in ages. "I am serious, Carson. We all need a good load of sleep. This is so going to be not one of the better weeks in Atlantis."

* * *

**A.N.: **This must have been the longest chapter I have ever written. I just love Kate Heightmeyer 


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